We have updated our Terms & Conditions. To continue, please confirm that you have read and accept these:

You have to agree to pocketmags.com's Terms & Conditions to proceed

This website use cookies and similar technologies to improve the site and to provide customised content and advertising. By using this site, you agree to this use. To learn more, including how to change your cookie settings, please view our Cookie Policy

Letters & opinions

Oliver Kamm (“The Casey Review is shallow and confused” January) is free to criticise my report, although he might consider that not everyone in this country has the freedom or the language skills to do so. He is also entitled to dismiss “feelings” as worthy only of being put in inverted commas, or to suggest that policymakers shouldn’t listen to the public, only “inform” them. If the last year hasn’t caused him to reflect on that, nothing I can say here will change his mind.

On the issue of Rotherham, however, he is just wrong. I wrote a 157-page report on its council and child sexual exploitation in 2015. I wasn’t “seeking an off-the-shelf example of purported political correctness without fully grasping the scale and scandal.” What happened there was, alongside sexism, an unwillingness to challenge the behaviour of some ethnic minority men for fear of being labelled racist. Sadly, Kamm’s dismissal of my report leaves the impression he would make that mistake again.

About Prospect Magazine

In Prospect’s February issue: Tom Clark and Luke Harding examine the attacks facing democracy. Clark reviews two books on democracy and suggests a new intellectual assault may be on the horizon. Harding looks at Russia’s attempts to derail the democratic process by focussing on its technical frailty. Melissa Deckman asks why women voted for Trump, while Duncan Bell charts the story of the Anglosphere and suggests Brexiteers are indulging in an old fantasy.
Also in this issue: Matthew Harries asks if it’s time to ban the nuclear bomb, Adam Mars-Jones looks at the way we perceive aliens in films and Elizabeth Pisani explores the role of activists in changing the perception of Aids and its pushing for treatment.